Girl’s Swimming: GA Has 10 Finish in Top-Five at Swim Championships

NEWTOWN SQUARE — The girl’s swimming and diving team has navigated their way through a majority of the InterAc League’s teams throughout the regular season. On Tuesday, they had the opportunity to prove who was the best of the best in the league at the IAAL Swim Championships at Episcopal Academy.

Germantown Academy had a good showing at the meet, placing fifth or better in 10 different events. The Patriots also placed 12th through seventh a total of 18 times. For Head Coach Jeff Thompson, the performance was a pleasant surprise.

“They were better than I thought they would be,” Thompson said. “I didn’t think we’d have a problem with effort, I just know where we’re at in our training. I thought it’d be tough for them to put up some good times and they did it.”

Thompson attributed the good times to the group’s ability to rally around each other as a team. He said that they all felt the same way, created a positive energy and let everything go.

That energy led the team to first place finishes in the 200-yard freestyle relay, 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle. The relay team made up of Emma Atkinson ’20, Emily Morrissey ’19, Alana Andress ’20 and Erin Merke ’19 swam the event in 1:39.91, two whole seconds faster than the second place team. Atkinson took first in the 200 freestyle and set the Episcopal Academy pool record at 1:50.14 in the process. In the 500, Emily Thompson ’19 swam 5:19.39.

The 400 freestyle relay team of Merke, Andress, Thompson and Atkinson finished in second place with a time of 3:37.37. The 200-yard medley relay (1:51.36) also took second with a group consisting of Atkinson, Merke, Morrissey and Riley Gobora ’18.

Merke swam a time of 25.23 in the 50-yard freestyle which gave her second place. Andress took second in 100-yard butterfly with a time of 59.86. Gobora finished the event in seventh with a time of 1:01.37.

Andress added another top-five finish in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:58.00, giving her fourth. Thompson placed fifth in the 200 IM with a time of 2:17.00 and Morrissey tallied a fifth-place finish in the 100 freestyle, swimming 55.88.

The Patriots now have some time before they head to Easterns on Feb. 16 and 17. Thompson said that he is looking forward to seeing what the team can do after having some time to rest.

“We will keep the team on a pretty normal cycle,” Thompson said. “They’ll continue swimming about the same time everyday, we won’t mess with that too much. We will bring the volume down. We’ll back off what we’re doing in the weight room so they’re not sore and tired anymore, but we’ll maintain the intensity.”